The following exchange be tween former New Jersey Govs. Brendan T. Byrne and Tom Kean took place in a teleconference on Tuesday.

Q: How are things going with the Sept. 11 Commission, Gov. Kean?

KEAN: It's a heavy lift. At the moment we're looking for a counsel.

BYRNE: I'll volunteer. In the old days, I was toying with seeking a position as counsel in the Watergate matter.

KEAN: In this case, they want someone who has Washington experience. Someone who knows these agencies, what buttons to push. It's a different world, and you've got to understand it.

BYRNE: (Michael) Chertoff (chief of the Justice Department's Criminal Division) would be great had he not gone on the bench.

KEAN: Yes, he would. It's very difficult to get a commission like this started. You've got to work with a very sparse budget. You have to hire everybody - we need a staff of 50 - and start from scratch. We have thousands of résumés, and yet you need to chase people who you really want to submit résumés. We've got security clearances, which can take up to six months - six months we don't have. Everyone has to get clearance at the highest level. There's all the ethics disclosures and questionnaires.

BYRNE: How much time is this taking you?

KEAN: A couple days a week, I'd guess. We've got eight different areas Congress has mandated we have to look into, things like visa control, money laundering, the history of al Qaeda, congressional oversight and airline security. We have to look in depth, and the only way to do that is through task forces. We're making good progress. We've hired about 25 people, and probably will complete the hiring in the next 10 days. We've got secure space to house the 500,000 pages of classified documents that are going to be transferred to us from the Congress.

BYRNE: I've got a great idea. Quit!

KEAN: It's a mammoth task. And we have to look at all those documents before we do anything else, so right now we're trying to get those released to us from congressional committees.

Q: In Charles Kushner, who re cently withdrew his nomination to head the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Gov. James E. McGreevey chose a campaign con tributor the Legislature said had used business funds for personal and political purposes. He's made other nominations that also have raised questions. Do they add up to an impression that will hurt McGreevey's chances for re-elec tion?

BYRNE: By McGreevey's fourth year, nobody will remember such mistakes. Or, if they do, they'll know they had nothing to do with corruption, but were part of his learning experience.

KEAN: I think you can make a lot of mistakes the first year, and if they're made out of inexperience the public forgives you. But you can't keep it up. If these mistakes continue and become a pattern in his second, third and fourth year, they'll create a bad impression. So they have to stop now.

BYRNE: The interesting thing is all these appointments were quality people.

KEAN: Let's say most of them were.

BYRNE: I recall you being quoted as respecting Kushner.

KEAN: That's why I said most of them. I haven't been quoted as saying good things about all the others. Earlier on, there were some appointments of people who shouldn't have been appointed.

BYRNE: At least McGreevey's appointments aren't threatening the safety of the globe, as George W. Bush's appointments are. That Princeton kid, Rumsfeld, is a threat to mankind.

KEAN: Donald Rumsfeld probably is the most qualified secretary of defense we've had in the last century.

BYRNE: I think Rumsfeld has been a disaster. He's getting us into a war which we didn't need, which is not going to help us or solve anything, and which will cost us both financially and, more important, in human lives. When the pope is sending a delegation to plead with the U.S. not to do something, that's pretty dramatic. Meanwhile, North Korea is getting ready for serious war.

KEAN: If war comes, the culprit is not going to be Rumsfeld. It's going to be Saddam Hussein.

BYRNE: You can say that. But when we have between 200,000 and 300,000 military sitting over there ready to go and nobody to call them off, that's a terrible position to put us in.

KEAN: If it comes, and I hope it doesn't, it'll be because the man has used weapons of mass destruction and has stockpiled them to use on his neighbors. And if he gets the means to deliver them, he will use them on us and become an increasing danger to the free world.

Q: The governor has named state Sen. John Matheussen (R- Gloucester) to head the Delaware River Port Authority, which not only will quadruple Matheussen's pen sion but will open up a position in the split Senate that possibly could be filled by a Democrat. Is this the sort of deal McGreevey vowed not to do when he was campaigning?

KEAN: Of course, but you can't expect anything different. By offering Matheussen, who is a very good man by the way, a job he is well qualified to handle, he has given his own party a shot at controlling the Senate. I'd expect him to do that.

BYRNE: This appointment has generated enthusiastic support on the Republican side of the aisle. If they're not worried about it, why should we be?

KEAN: This is what is known as two-fer politics. You get Matheussen appointed to the authority, you get a candidate for the State Police superintendent to run for the Senate, and hopefully you get control. Sure it's a political deal, but it certainly is not the worst of them.

BYRNE: And most times they don't even work. Look at all the shenanigans over (former U.S. Sen. Robert) Torricelli. People said if we don't have him running, we may lose the Senate. We lost anyway.